37 HOW THE WEEKEND WENT (3)

It was a futile attempt to drown his embarrassment with petty noise. 

Kang Sola watched all his movements from the corner of her eyes, unable to respond to his words.

While he turned beet red, Kang Sola paid him no more attention as he craved for. She went on delivering the fruit juices to the industriously working artists in the playroom. The nannies kept a watch on them and lent them a hand with the journaling while Sola insisted on making the fruit juices herself.

The truth was that she was trying to evade Xue Guangxi's scrutiny. She knew that he was observing her reaction when she saw the photograph that Xiao Lihua complained about. 

And her reaction was not too good to be proud of.

But here he was, following her around the house like a lost puppy wanting attention.

Knowing it, she decided to ignore him completely.

Xue Guangxi truly looked like a poor little puppy whimpering in a corner with his hot cup of coffee. He did not return to the playroom. Instead, he moped in the living room area.

Kang Sola sighed with so much guilt at the sight of him. 'Be strong! Don't give in to his pitiful act!' She made a resolve within her. 

"I'll fetch some of my art materials from my room." She notified the twins who couldn't be disturbed in their crafting. Their heads were both bowed down and didn't even spare her a glance.

"Okay, Aunty." At least Xiao Lingitan whispered, barely audible.

Kang Sola was sure that Xue Guangxi would not be able to follow her there.

In the refuge of her room, Kang Sola sighed, then rubbed her forehead with her palm in anxiety. "Nothing's going to change." She sat at the edge of her bed for several seconds in a daze. Then she buried her face onto her pillow as she repeated the words that were supposed to calm her heart filled with dread of the unknown. "Nothing's going to change. Gosh, I��m scared."

When she reappeared at the house's first level, Xue Guangxi was nowhere to be seen. She had painfully stretched her neck in a sneak peek in almost every direction. Without her asking, the maids told her that he already left.

He was gone.

---

Last Saturday.

Su Jingjing walked listlessly along the busy streets of the city. It was dusk, at around five o'clock in the afternoon – a time of day when the horizon could not fully decide whether to shift from the day in full commitment and plunge into the cold, bittersweet darkness of the night, or stay in the warm splashes of the retiring sun a bit longer.

She bit her lower lip as her eyes flickered with her pent-up emotions.

She was stood up. The corners of her lips curled downward despite her efforts to contain herself.

She had clasped her hands together across her chest imploringly so in front of him shamelessly a few days back. "Please give me a chance. I will try and try until I get your forgiveness. That's what I live for. I hope we can talk… privately." She threw the guards a glance before continuing. "Are you free this Saturday? I'll go to the same temple where we first met. Do you remember? I'll be there. I'll wait for you no matter how long."

But.

Xue Guangxi did not show up that Saturday.

What did she expect?

'Did I really think that he would do as I say?'

To be fair, and in an attempt to cover up for him, she noted in her mind that he did not commit to that meeting. It was her own volition to wait for him the whole day. That was what she had told him, and that was what she did.

She occupied an empty table laid outside a restaurant. As she seated herself, she bawled her eyes out. 'What did I expect?'

'That's the only thing that I can do – wait for him until he decides to finally listen to what I have to say. It's me who's sinned him. It's me who should wait until he'll open up to me again. But how much longer do I have to wait? Will it ever come? Will the day ever come when he will finally look into my eyes again? Trust me again?'

The world around her turned into a blur as her tears screened her surroundings. People around her threw sideways in her direction, startled to see a crying lady in public. 

Perhaps the people around her considered her as a weirdo with her display of peculiar behavior in a public place.

But she did not care about them.

For ten years, she had not cared about what other people would think of her. She had not cared of the dreams and aspirations she could have reached if only she exerted her serious efforts. She could not have cared any less about the success and triumph she could have attained in life. She accepted her fate, and that was having a bleak future, a ruined life.

She only cared for one thing – her redemption in Xue Guangxi's eyes. That's the only thing that matters. 

That Saturday, she woke up early, at around six in the morning. After washing up and having two slices of bread for breakfast, she went off with her day and rode a bus to Zhihua Temple. It was the place where she had met Xue Guangxi for the first time when she was around fifteen or sixteen.

She had never met a more innocent, cheerful, dreamy, and handsome boy her age before. She had liked him when she first saw him initially based on his looks and aura. Not long after, she had fallen in love with him due to his innate charms and sincerity. 

She couldn't stop thinking about him and worrying about not seeing him again. She…

Her cheeks blushed the lovely shade of pink whenever she thought of him. And by 'thinking of him' she not only literally thought of him. A vivid picture of him floated at the backside of her eyelids that whenever she closed them, she could see him – vibrant, smiling, warm.

Because she was preoccupied in her own little dreamland, she did not notice that somewhere not too far from where she sat, a man behind a steering wheel was intently looking at her, studying the myriads of facial expressions her fair jadeite countenance exuded.

At one point, she was crying, but then she stopped altogether. Just like how a rainbow adorned the sky after a gloomy rain, her face shone with a pink blush as a smile slowly crept her face.

Just like how the sun gradually would usually show its radiance behind the clouds after the rain.

The man inside a black Maybach did not mean to pull over to stare at her like a creep. He just noticed that the crying lady seated in front of a coffee shop looked familiar.

"Ahh, it's one of Xue Guangxi's exes." The man was Yang Haoran, Xue Guangxi's business partner at XG Corp. He finally remembered that she was the same woman who begged Xue Guangxi without any sort of dignity the other day in front of their office. "Tss." He shook his head once he recognized the lady and drove off. He couldn't believe he wasted a good few seconds – or had it been minutes – of his precious time to recall where he saw her. 'She's just some crazy lady. Tss.'